I bought the cartridge and stylus from amazon on 28th of March. Cartridge was mounted and 1 side of the record was played with it, the next day I ordered ML stylus and since then I haven’t used it. Note that due to not willing to bother with realignment, I am keeping original vm95sh cartridge, instead your getting my other vm95c cartridge which is exactly the same thing. So stylus is technically new - less than 30 minutes of play.